Tempus Fugit

I renewed my passport last month. I kept the old one and compared the mugshots to determine if I’m looking five years older or holding my own. Well, in my humble opinion, I’m hanging in there but physically my age is definitely catching up with me. I have a new appreciation for my elders now that I know firsthand just what they have to cope with every day. My knees are shot, osteoarthritis. Every step is painful but bearable. I’m in no hurry to have surgery since I’ve heard so many horror stories! Besides I can still hobble along with the dogs. Arthritis is also affecting my spine and my hips, and they hurt every day, too. I have swollen ankles to match my swollen knees. All my joints snap, crackle, pop, and their range of motion is steadily decreasing. I’m becoming increasingly clumsy, fumbling and dropping things on a daily basis. And my strength, of which I was so proud, is ebbing. An assortment of floaters interfere with my eyesight, causing me to frequently roll my eyes to try to move them out of the way. I wear bifocals, but still have to take off my glasses and squint to read small print. And of course, I need a different pair of specs to read the computer screen. Gary says my hearing is going but some of that may be selective deafness! I have chronic sinusitis, an eustachian tube that doesn’t drain properly necessitating a tube in that ear and causing intermittent inner ear infections, numbness in my left leg and lower back from a bad fall two years ago, a degree of carpal tunnel syndrome in both hands, varicose veins (an hereditary problem), lingering pain from another fall in 2000 that broke two ribs, and a bunion on my left foot. And my internal systems are no longer operating at peak efficiency either. Apart from that, everything’s wonderful. When I get up during the night to answer those more frequent calls of nature, I stand up gingerly to make sure my knees will support me, then crawl along the wall to the bathroom, trying not to stub my toe on the chair! I did that last year and broke my little toe – it took eight weeks to heal! The first order of the day every morning is determining which of my various aches and pains are going to be most bothersome today and whether or not I will need to start the day with a fix of Tylenol. Each and every day is now an exercise in frustration as I struggle to accept my age-related limitations. On the bright side, there is one good thing about aging – the lovely silver streaks in my dark blonde hair, all natural!